Authors Robert Siek (Purpose and Devil Piss, Sibling Rivalry Press) and Emanuel Xavier (Nefarious, Rebel Satori Press) will read selections from their new poetry collections and autograph copies that will be on sale at this book release party. Some alcoholic beverages will be available. This is a FREE event.

Purpose and Devil Piss, Robert Siek’s full-length poetry debut, is a collection that spans a decade of the poet’s life, relating experiences good and bad and exploring human interactions through scenes of domesticity, sexual debauchery, early mornings coming off drugs, family happenings, avoiding strangers on the street, dating, locker rooms and treadmills at the gym, neighbors’ comings and goings, and more.

With heartfelt honesty, Emanuel Xavier's fourth full-length poetry collection Nefarious welcomes the reader into the later second act of a former underage prostitute. This book captures insights into his private world: relationships, heartbreaks, life as a spoken word artist, time spent with his cat, aging. With a dose of dark humor, Xavier’s pleasure in the written word and his passion makes this an engaging collection.

Robert Siek works as a production editor at a large publishing house in Manhattan. His poems have appeared in journals such as The Columbia Poetry Review, Court Green, Mary, Assaracus, and Chelsea Station. In 2002, the New School published his chapbook Clubbed Kid, and in 2007, he was included in the anthology Userlands: New Fiction Writers from the Blogging Underground.

An Equality Forum LGBT History Month Icon, Emanuel Xavier is author of the poetry collections If Jesus Were Gay & other poems, Pier Queen, and Americano: Growing Up Gay & Latino in the USA and the novel Christ Like. As a former homeless gay teen, he has staged many benefits for queer youth and is a longtime activist. He was featured on Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry on HBO.